I Didn’t Grow Up Dreaming One Day I’d Be A Prophet

No PROFIT in this job. Take it and shove….

Fat Beggars School of Prophets

When I was a little kid, I wanted to be Evel Knievel, or a police officer, or a fire fighter, or maybe an astronaut.  I was sure I would work in a career playing for the Dallas Cowboys too.  But by the time I was in high school, I was basically disillusioned with church.  I certainly didn’t think then that I would find a career in prophecy when visiting my guidance counselor.

And the pay?  Well, the job earns so little, they can’t afford to print up brochures featuring it.

I was in my mid twenties when I came back to church.  And while there were some exciting features of that time in my life – in my faith – I still did not expect to take the path I found.  But no doubt I came back with a critical eye.  And the ironic thing, at least as I see…

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The Stormy World of Chick Tracts

Since the 1960s Chick tracts have been placed in novel areas in public American facilities and too, around the world.  These comic book, cartoon captioned Gospel booklets are not without their controversy.

Even with the recent passing of Jack Chick, the founder, Chick tracts continue to preach the gospel with its fire and brimstone and to damn with those who prefer a more gentler approach.

Chick tracts are big on being against the Catholic Church and the Pope.  It is big against the Jews and many mainstream religions.  Chick tracts promotes the King James Version only and is also big on promoting demons, devils and (against Islam) also big on the Sinner’s Prayer.

In fact, you can call Chick tracts what you want, they are anything but lukewarm; better described as hot and hammering.

Without a doubt, Chick tracts are successful in converting and attracting nonbelievers into Christianity.  Also true, it can be argued they are extremely and out of the way, offensive to many.

If nothing else, most of us can learn from the appeal of Chick tracts and its approach to reaching people.  Aside from the damning to hell all who disagree with the tracts, we can learn from the simplicity, the cost effectiveness and persistence of the tracts.

Chick tracts do in fact represent many Christian beliefs and ideal systems.  While I disagree, I do believe Christians as a whole could at least adopt the approach in our message to the world.  Our message should be available just as Chick tracts are: should be short, simple and to the point.  And finally, our message should at least point to the cornerstones of salvation and lead the reader to Jesus and to the body of believers of the church.  At least to this effect, we can share in the success of a small booklet that has found itself into the hands of millions the world over.  The second round of messages should not simply be Chick tracts, they should be tracts provided by the believers of the church as a whole

When We are WWrongG

As it happens, being human and subject to available facts at the time, we are most often wrong as our judgments and perceptions are only built around whatever data is available to us at the time. This is not exactly a comforting thought as most people like to at least think our thoughts and behaviors are based on a sound and rational system of logic.

Even in interpreting the Bible, we are confined to the best interpretation available and must assign ourselves to distant our thoughts from our preconceived notions and ideas.

Regardless of our intentions, we nonetheless manage to mutilate our efforts as we piece together wisdom from one chapter or one book or another to formulate whatever of organized thought we had in mind.  In other words, we tend to piece together a series of actions to scope the information into one complete organism of action and sequence.  This is profound when we do it with the four synoptic gospels. In reality, we ‘force’ the information to fit our scheme of things and this is a distorted truth that is probably more wrong than correct.

In short, most things in our view with life and likely more wrong than right.  Thus, most of our precepts, our values are engrained with a loose system of faith and presumptions.

And as our perceptions change from day to day and from year to year, we also approach the universe differently than from previous days or ages.  And as we age, most of us believe our previous views were more or less immature or otherwise viewed as wrong.

Because of this, in the past we relied more on a system of elders to balance out the views of the youth.  A more well seasoned individual was supposedly wiser and possessed a knowledge more subject to time.

Today’s generations tend to move away from that concept and rely instead on more ‘instant’ information and thus, I think are subject to even more error than those of the past.

Nonetheless, the result will at least be the same:  we will continue to believe in wrong realities and now will not be checked by the knowledge of our progenitors and elders.

The real shame and crime here is that people will be content in being wrong and in being satisfied that the answers gleaned are sufficient and good enough to strive forward. However, we must remember that our wrongness can never be good enough for the large measure of truth we search for in life and in Scriptures.  In the end, our quest is for the truth and for the peace given as a result.  To all of this, the only answer that is succinct enough is that of our Lord, Jesus.  In him, we ferret out the truth and enjoy the peace given to us by the salvation of His grace.  And in that, He is never wrong.

God Opened A Door

via God Opened A Door

The Facade of All Our Tears

We are good at it as we all know.  We express our sorrow, our pity and explain how we feel so bad for all the ills affecting others.

We are only so quick to exclaim, “God bless you.” And then walk away as if the other person were in an entirely different world.

This is kind of like rolling up the windows in our vehicles when cruising through a slum area. We like to feel safe and thus locking our car doors and excluding the outside from getting in, we distance ourselves from the reality of urban plight. But yes, we feel terrible that people have to live in such conditions. Our hearts are beating peanut butter and jelly over it we feel just that bad.

The same is true with the homeless or those others in want.  We feel so poorly about them we write huge volumes to explain their existence. We study, categorize them and grant degrees to people who understand them and might even formulate a committee to espouse facts therein to illuminate the situation.

And once we understand the problem, we feel badly for them and wonder how it will ever change.

That’s why we feel badly about slavery, or about the defeat of Native American Indians, or now even of the immigrant.

No one is going to get up out of their home and turn it over, but they feel oh so bad about it all.

It’s about privilege and exploitation they explain.

And that is when the tears begin to roll.

And then everyone agrees, we all want things to be made right, but none will lift a finger to change a thing.

Yet, it is agreed we all feel so bad.

Announcing that which Matters

One of the Mantras being shouted out against the new Supreme Court candidate is the fear of losing the so-called right to abortion.

Imagine that if you will that the strongest issue on earth to you is a right to kill someone else.  This is really some news.

I mean, of all the issues you could choose we reserved the right to abort a child based on our right to participate in Godless behavior.  That behavior is a sexual activity that produces ‘mistakes’ and those mistakes must be taken care of:  in this case, via abortion.

The strange thing about this is about 44.5 ‘mistakes’ have occurred since 1970.  I could be wrong, but somewhere along the line we aren’t exactly learning from our mistakes or past behavior.

For you see, these are NOT mistakes.  This is a result of active and wanton behavior that is in defiance against the commandments of God.   But then again, we can’t speak of that way for that might actually offend someone.

Yet, in our passing away from this earth we will leave a legacy.  And that legacy will be a statement in terms of our values and core beliefs.  I would hope the greatest statement about us is not in our ability to make mistakes.  No, I would hope that legacy would include our ability to learn from our mistakes and correct our behavior thereof.

The Silence of our Words

A few years back a group in the United States was known as the ‘Silent Majority’.  For all practical purposes this was the alleged conservative faction that purposively backed Richard Nixon’s policies and more importantly, his Viet Nam agenda. As a rough guess, there probably was some truth in Nixon’s assessment of his loyal supporters.

In comparison in more recent years, we might also refer to our present Church group of conservatives also as being a silent majority. I say they exist as this constringency did vote Trump into office, and thus must be a large group consisting of millions.

The idea here is ‘Silent’.

And while this might all be good when making reference to politics, this is not such a great idea with religion and faith.

As Christians, our agenda, our mission is NOT to be silent, but to be transparent and proactive.  Our mission is always to announce the good news of the Gospel and throughout the entire world.

And in America, this is at least part of the problem.  Christians have been so silent over the years, it seems Christians will tolerate almost anything.

In fact with a broad brush we could paint a profile of many middleclass Christians.

This group would consist of extremely law abiding, hardworking, family people with a high sense of justice and  God fearing.

And since this group is of a low profile and wish to create no trouble, they are in the background—silent.

However, the problem with silence is that it appears to be an endorsement of ideas and behaviors.  And as such, children who look to adults for limits see none and adopt the fashionable fads and waves of the world.

The truth be told here:  most or at least many of the popular fads are not only harmful, they are extremely ungodly.

We see that in Music, in the arts and theater and in politics, spilling over into our educational system.

Some would address these as liberal ideas, but I see them more as ungodly ideas.  This is NOT liberal, they are in waywardness and in fight against God.

And in all of this, the Christian is silent.

All of this goes way beyond normal politics.  We are speaking of a complete lifestyle where anything goes.  Anything except common decency.

In the loud silence of all this noise, we have now entered a portal of no return.  The silence is deafening and now exists only among those with grey hair of the church.

If the legacy of the church is to continue into the future, it is the elder Christian’s job to step forward and make plain all that we stand for.

And in standing, our announcements cannot be performed In silence for it will not be a silent majority that transforms a society, but a stainless majority that is active, that engages and one that resonates by example with a voice that is heard across the world.  That is the type of behavior that is anything but silent and one that wins souls to Christ.

 

A Picnic With Jesus (Secret Agent Kid Sister Throws A Luke-14 Party In The Park) — Fat Beggars School of Prophets — Hard Times Ministries

I had the pleasure of joining Agent Z’s kid sister (my teenaged step daughter) in the park over the weekend when she threw a party for Jesus and specifically invited Lubbock’s street homeless to join her. I am so impressed with the kids from this house; Secret Agent Kid Sis hosted about forty people in […] […]

via A Picnic With Jesus (Secret Agent Kid Sister Throws A Luke-14 Party In The Park) — Fat Beggars School of Prophets — Hard Times Ministries

Overrating their Contributions to Society

This actually should be an obvious fact.  The jokers that fit into this category are our actors, rock-stars, tv hosts, national athletes, radio stars and so forth, namely the media in one form or another.

Somehow or another it is stated, ‘What they have given to society and our culture.”

In fact, we see this yearly whenever it’s the anniversary such as John Lennon of the Beetles and others.

These guys are so very important that when their mother or father or brother or even if their dog dies, we hear about it.  We know their stage names, nicknames and even real names on top of all of that.

Yet, think about what they actually ‘give’ us.  And what they give us is some form of entertainment and for that they are well paid or at perhaps over paid for their services. And when they go broke, we are supposed to feel sorry for them and grieve their problems.

So much for the way of the world.

In this way, we don’t have true values or speak of things that actually do count, but on these phony values that the world says are important.

And the really strange thing about it is that for all of this, we are all left out of the equation.  We are not part of them, but excluded from them.  They are special and if you don’t believe it, ask them.  They will claim artistic value and merit.

Truthfully, they are all overrated and in fact most deserves their works to be ushered into the waste basket if considered at all.

And for what is real?  Oh, we’ll hide that and hide the words that actually make us free and explain to us and the world our true identity.  And for all of that, it begins with opening up the bible.  All the rest follows along with it and the true value or lack of value of the things of the world.

“Experience Jesus!” With First Church of the True Christians — Fat Beggars School of Prophets (Coming soon to a Theater near you) Starring Jesus as Himself and the company of a dozen of His Angels.

Yeah, we got a new summer series put on by Pastor Bates starting up this June at the First Church of the True Christians. Lots of banners, mailers, radio ads and other promotional material on-line and elsewhere. Should be an exciting series. Pastor Bates wants us to “Experience Jesus!” with him and his church. The […]

via “Experience Jesus!” With First Church of the True Christians — Fat Beggars School of Prophets